Nonpareil

Earlier in the year, I decided to catch up on some classic films made by master film maker Satyajit Ray. The resolve continues. It is wise to give some space between his movies so they sink in and you get time to think about them.

As more and more of the world seems to get materialistic, easily swayed by the flashy, glitzy urban lifestyle, watching these movies takes you to a ground level that is as earthy and real as it can get. It is life from a different viewpoint in every film. An eternal search for something elusive stays on with you long after the movie credits roll up. The sad truth is that years after the movies were made, the situation hasn't changed much for so many people. Yet there is hope.

I recently watched Teen Kanya, an anthology film, based on three stories by Rabindranath Tagore. It is the first part that I wish to talk about today. Postmaster, an approximately 45 minute film, set in a rural setting, is a moving story of a young orphan Ratan who forms a tender bond with the new postmaster. He is a city bred young man who uses his spare time to teach Ratan who cleans and cooks for him, to read and write. He also encourages her to sing and reads her poetry that leads her to love him like a brother. She cares for him when he falls sick but in the end, which you can watch here, things end abruptly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtm__gZqbnY

How Ray managed to get such a young girl to emote like she has in the film is beyond me. His fine touch as he shows her emotions is unparalleled. Nothing over the top, yet the look in her eyes, lonely tears shed by the water well while doing her chores, and the few things she says in the film stay with you long enough to make you feel restless. I felt hopelessly inadequate for a long time after watching the film.

The mind tries to find refuge somewhere, and in this case, it helped me connect two seemingly unrelated truths. The first is that there are so many such Ratans that need a family. The second - there are young souls with hearts of gold who are stepping up.

A friend had once shared something about his sister. Apparently, she always wanted to adopt a child. She kept her word. She got married and after having a child of their own, the young couple adopted a baby girl. They did their bit. It was so heartening to listen to that story.  I stumbled upon a picture of mom with the kids and it was wonderful to see the little girl so secure, so comfortable.

The mind sought peace by connecting two dots, very different yet related in a cosmic sort of way for me.

The story of a bookmark

While I was in grade school, my family decided to visit my uncle and aunt at Bangalore during mid term break. We had a great vacation, and then came the time to visit Cauvery Emporium, one of the highlights of my mom's itinerary. She had her list of things she wanted to buy, and I was looking forward to simply admiring all the stuff they had at their store on M.G. Road.  When my aunt said she planned on buying  me a gift, I was really excited. She chose this leather bookmark with an inverse chevron end finished with a silvery gold Nataraj embossed on one side and rawhide on the back. I will  be lying if I say I was not disappointed when she settled on her choice. I had been keen on the more useless things that would look pretty for a while but would soon be forgotten. However, I soon realized that gifts do not get any more personal than this. I wrote my name on the back and started using it right away. It would sit on my desk when I was done reading a book until a new one came along. I soon began to develop a bond with it.

We went through a whole lot of books together, through school and college, through my stint as a research fellow, and after I got married. Reading took a back seat when a demanding baby came into my life, but the bookmark remained my friend.

When we decided to move countries, all of my house needed to be packed into four suitcases. I figured the tiny bookmark would easily slip in my handbag and go wherever I went and so it ended up joining a whole lot of tiny things that fell in the same category. How much one accumulates that falls in one special category or the other!

So the little leather strip traveled across oceans and landed here in my home. We went through a myriad of emotions together, books that were dramatic, some that were sad, others that made me laugh, and some that stayed with me long after the last page was turned.

I used to take this little page marker for granted until one day I got an email from the library that the book I had asked for was ready to be picked up. I got the book home and opened the desk drawer as usual to get the bookmark out and start reading. It wasn't there! I looked again, and then rummaged through the entire drawer, but no! It wasn't there! Breathe, I told myself, it's probably on the desk. I looked all over, high and low, to no avail. It had simply disappeared. Two days later, I pulled out another bookmark that had been lying around for years  and decided to start the book. I remember it was Khaled Hosseini's And The Mountains Echoed. Every time I picked up the book, the new bookmark looked up at me and I would feel something amiss. I finished the book, didn't like it as much as his earlier ones and returned it to the library. I also decided to ask the librarian if they had found any bookmark that fit my description. I was a little hesitant as I asked thinking what person in the right mind would return a book with a bookmark in it. Turned out there are plenty who do just that! The helpful gentleman at the library went inside and came out with a handful of leather bookmarks and asked me to check if mine was one of them. It wasn't! He said he would still keep an eye out for it and wished me luck.

I came back home, trying to think what I had done with my book prior to the last one. That's when I had the aha! moment. My brain suddenly threw out a little detail at me which I had completely forgotten. I had been at work when I had finished the book, and I had carefully taken out the bookmark,  and put it in the bag I take to work. On the way back home, I had dropped the book back at the library. I ran to the cabinet and opened the bag. There it was, lying at the bottom of the files, wondering what took me so long to get to it!

Things are fine again in the reading world!